The state's computers froze for the entire business day Tuesday, shuttering tag offices and delaying court-ordered child support payments to 516,000 Georgia children, among other problems.

The shutdown was caused by a power outage at Georgia Power Co. as the remnants of Hurricane Frances swept through the state.

But the computers never should have been running on electricity. An April report by a state consultant noted that batteries that normally power the computers had gone bad and two backup generators had failed.

Officials with the Georgia Technology Authority told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they learned of that consultant's report just last month, and didn't have time to implement its recommendations before this week's bad weather.

The shutdown was ``really unusual and highly unlikely, but it did happen,'' said Joyce Goldberg, spokeswoman for the authority, which oversees computers for 100 state agencies.

Unusual or not, citizens were peeved the system was down. Long lines built up at offices renewing driver's licenses and long lines persisted even Wednesday after the computers were back up. ``I think there's a lot of room for improvement,'' said Sam Collier, who waited with 100 others Wednesday at a motor vehicles office in DeKalb County.

Among the other problems caused by Tuesday's shutdown: The Georgia Bureau of Investigation couldn't run background checks. Web surfers wanting to check professional license application were turned away from the Secretary of State's Web site. Even Gov. Sonny Perdue could not check his e-mail.

Goldberg said the GTA is not sure yet why it took months to get the report noting the battery problem with the state network. ``We are looking into why we didn't see that report sooner,'' she told the newspaper.

GTA Director Tom Wade had already ordered new batteries, but they did not arrive before this week's storms.

Perdue spokesman Shane Hix said the governor has ``been assured that actions are being rectified and that GTA is looking at how long-term we can best resolve any future problems.''

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)